When it comes to African-Americans and other people of color in this country, it is going to get worse before it gets better.

Our latest trauma came last Friday in Tulsa, Okla., where 40-year-old Terence Crutcher, a father of four and unarmed, was waiting outside his SUV that had broken down while he was on his way home from a music appreciation course at a local community college. Instead of responding police officers helping him, Officer Betty Shelby shot him at close range in the upper right chest, while Officer Tyler Turnbough zapped him with a Taser about the same time.

Police dashcam video, as well as aerial video taken from a police helicopter, show that Mr. Crutcher’s hands were in the air and that he didn’t lunge at or threaten the officers when he was shot and killed.

Maybe we didn’t receive the memo, but since when does a motorist with a broken-down vehicle need to raise his or her hands in the air like a suspect to get help from the police?

Of course, as with many other cases of African-Americans being killed at the hands of police, the official police version of events differs from the truth caught on video. 

In Tulsa, officials said the officers fired after Mr. Crutcher put his hand through the SUV’s window to reach for something.

Noted attorney Benjamin Crump, who is helping to represent the Crutcher family, pointed out that the video shows the SUVs windows were up. Mr. Crutcher apparently wasn’t reaching for anything and, in fact, had one hand still in the air when Officer Shelby fired the fatal shot.

This latest disturbing news comes just days after the family of motorist Sandra Bland reached a $1.9 million settlement with Texas officials following her hanging death July 2015 in a Waller County jail.

According to the Los Angeles Times, in the last five months, about $17 million has been paid out to the families of police shooting victims, all of whom are African-American.

The responses from the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates about the latest police slaying have been telling.

In talking with radio show host Steve Harvey on Tuesday, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton said:

“Maybe I can by speaking directly to white people say, ‘Look, this is not who we are,’ ” she said. “We’ve got to do everything possible to improve policing, to go right at implicit bias.”

“We gotta tackle the systemic racism,” she continued. “In Tulsa? An unarmed man? With his hands in the air? I mean, this is just unbearable, and it needs to be intolerable.”

“We have got to rein in what is absolutely inexplicable, and we’ve got to have law enforcement respect communities and communities respect law enforcement because they have to work together,” she said to Mr. Harvey. “We’ve gotta change laws to protect people, to protect everything about them, and we’ve got to be a clear and loud voice for our society being what it should be — the city on the hill striving for the more perfect union.”

Speaking Wednesday at a Cleveland Heights church, Republican candidate Donald Trump said he is a “tremendous believer in the police and law and enforcement.”

But after viewing the video, it looked like Mr. Crutcher had done everything right, he said, adding he is “very, very troubled” by the actions of Officer Shelby.

He said: “People that choke, people that do that, maybe they can’t be doing what they’re doing.”

Appearing on Fox News Monday, Mr. Trump reiterated his support for racial profiling in the wake of the weekend bombings in New York and New Jersey by a naturalized citizen from Afghanistan.

“Our local police — they know who a lot of these people are. They are afraid to do anything about it because they don’t want to be accused of profiling,” Mr. Trump said.

He did not say what attributes he suggests police use to profile people. However, it is illegal for police to subject people to disparate treatment based on race and other protected classes.

Make no mistake. The police in Tulsa came into the situation profiling Mr. Crutcher as a threat because he was a large black man. The audio from the police helicopter in which two officers were flying, including Officer Shelby’s husband, who also is a cop, is clear. One says: “It’s time for the Taser.” The other says: “He looks like a bad dude, may be on something.”

Mr. Crutcher was pegged from the start as a criminal on drugs.

If police already are killing people of color as the result of racial profiling, what will happen if the leader of the nation is OK with it?

One more reason to think again before going into the voting booth on Nov. 8.

Just say “no” to Trump.